I want to say something, and I want to make it plain before we get started here, and that's this. I'm not trying to be controversial, and I'm not prepared to argue with anybody about anything. I'm going to present the light God has given me. I'm not condemning anybody else for doing it a different way. Are you listening? I'm not condemning anybody else. I'm having a hard enough time plowing my row, much less worrying about somebody else's row.

Some of my very best friends have a different philosophy of ministry than I'm going to present you. I have no fuss with them at all. So I'm not pitting what I'm saying against what somebody else is saying. Do you all grasp that here? One of the things you're going to have to learn as young men in life is to plow your row and let somebody else plow there.

You're going to have all you can do to plow your role. And you don't have to take, you can take a stand without condemning other people. You don't have to condemn anybody else. But you have to live in the light that God has given you. In the light that God has given you.

I'd like to give you a little history of how I arrived where I am so that you might understand why I am where I am. And this again, I am not criticizing, I'm not prepared to argue with anybody about anything in these days. Because I'm not condemning anybody else. They're free to go their way without any criticism from me. And I just want them to give me the same right to follow the light God's given me.

A few years ago, we started a prayer ministry at our church. Hitherto unknown, to a real degree. And we started in an old bus where there were no seats. And I decided, at that time we were trying to push the prayer hours, and I decided I would pray on Friday mornings from 3 to 4. And I decided I would pray during that hour through the church membership.

Now, up until now, I knew, you know, on Sunday morning when I got up, there was a sea of faces out there, twice. Not full both times, but full one time and fairly full the other time. And all those faces were out there and the people were coming and the money was coming and everything looked great.

I saw my congregation as a forest. But when I started praying through these things, I started looking at them at the tree at a time. And I would literally come out of there on Friday mornings sick. Sick to death. Because I would go through time, page after page after page, Rolodex card after Rolodex card, family after family, and I thought to myself, I'd have to go through 16 and 17 cards before I could find somebody that I really felt was living even a partially relevant Christian life.

And I came to the conclusion, and my heart cried out to God, and my heart cried out to God and said, God, I don't want to spend the rest of my life producing this kind of person. See, I was the leader. I'm responsible. The Bible is a book of leadership and leaders are responsible.

I don't know what other churches have by their programs. I've never been over their roads. I'm just going over mine. I'm talking about something strictly personal. I knew how these people lived. I knew what their young people did and didn't do, and I knew a lot of them. And the tragedy of it was this.

We'd come to many names that had left town for a year, and nobody knew it but me. And I'd come out of there, you know, I'd come out of there. Here was my flock, and I would see, well, I wonder what happened to Miss Jones. And I'd pull that card out and find out she'd left town a year later when I went down later.

And I thought, my life, what kind of ministry is that? That a person can belong to a fellowship of believers. And gone for a year, nobody knows it. And I'd be asking questions. You see, as I began to look at them one time, began to ask questions one time, began to find out things that just blew my mind.

I haven't seen this person in church in a year. I wonder what's happened to them. And when you went to find out what had happened to them, it broke your heart. You see, as long as you're looking at the forest, you don't notice the trees. If there's a big forest out there, you don't worry about the individual tree.

And so... Out of that burdened, sick heart, God's been leading us since. It's been a very rough road. Sort of wish he'd never led us this way because the concept of ministry we're going to be talking about in these days is a very, very costly ministry. It's a very costly ministry compared to the other way.

And you'll be seeing this as I share some things with you in just a few moments. And I'm going to try to help you to see the difference between two types of ministry. I'm not condemning the other ministry. It might work fine for other people. It might be the way God has ordained for them to walk.

And I know this, that having had a vision, I could never go back to the other way. I just could not go back to the other way and the old way of ministry. Now, today I'm going to just try to picture the two types of ministries as I have seen them in my experience. Let me put it that way.

And I'm not judging anybody else. You've seen them different in your experience? Fine. I do not want to get into any judgmental thing. I just want you to get the pictures I've seen. Is that clear with everybody? Nod your head when I ask you. Okay, good. Is that clear?

So you don't have to come up here and tell me about your home church. I'm telling you about my home church, okay? And why I am where I am and where I hope to move and where we're moving. And changing wineskins, I'm going to be talking to you about some of the problems in all of this, in changing ministries.

It's a very, very difficult thing to do. It is an extremely difficult thing to do. But I want to share with you... some of the differences, and if you, I was hoping to use an overhead projector, but I said this is not ideal. So if you'll get a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle, and you'll write over on the left-hand column, Peter Lord's old ministry.

See, I'm going to make it real personal, so you can't fuss with anybody else. And then you can write over in the right-hand column, PL's new light. Okay? New light. Into which he's trying to, moving, attempting to move in that, and I want to.

Let me, and I'm going to give you words and describe them on either side to try to help you understand the difference in the ministry. Now, let me start off with very, in my own ministry, I was basically concerned with information. And I want you to write on the left-hand column, information.

I was concerned about getting across to my people information. And therefore, the great major, and you're going to see as these words take shape down the line, why a different form is necessary. Now, the new type of ministry that I'm concerned about is formation. You see, before I was interested in getting facts in their mind.

Now, I'm interested in a lifestyle change. My old concept, if a person said, I believe in this, that was enough for me. But in the new style of ministry, till a person's practicing it, it's not good enough for me. In other words, the success of the message is not that a person can answer a test.

The success of the message is that a person's living a different way. The formation of a person's lifestyle. Now, before, and this will be the second word, I was primarily concerned with performance. I had a performance-based ministry, a ministry that was based largely on performance, the kind of performance you'd put on on a Sunday, for instance.

It had to be good. It had to be right. It had to be different. It had to be right up to snuff. I used to work on a stage. I worked my way through college on a very excellent stage, and I knew how to put on a good performance.

And I'm tempted over and over again. Now, don't get the idea that I'm against a good performance. But, you see, the ministry was centrally a performance-based ministry. And you can write over on the other side now, participation, participation, participation.

Now, let me illustrate this to you. Before, I would have been more concerned with a good solo, a real sharp soloist, who put on a tremendous performance. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's a place for all of this, but you must remember these are emphases, okay? Not the elimination of some of these things.

But an emphasis. Now, I'm more concerned with a congregational song, because in my new understanding of ministry, a congregational song where everybody participates is more important to the ministry than a person putting on a solo. That, in other words, in the new type of ministry, as I see, getting people active, getting them performing together or participating together is more important than the one we listed before, which we said was... you know, the participation, I mean, the performance type of ministry.

Now, you can see how this will radically change all that you do. Let me give you an illustration of how it's affected our church. There's a little old guy. He's not all there. I mean, he really isn't all there. And he feels it is moral obligation at every service to come up on the platform and shake everybody's hand.

Now, if I were putting on a performance, back in my old days, I would have found some way to eliminate him because, you know, if you're going to put on a first-class performance, you don't want some guy wandering around when we march out there in good order and he sort of totters up to the platform and he shakes everybody's hand and he wanders.

He doesn't mind interrupting the guy making the announcements or something like that to shake somebody's hand. Now, you know, in my old style of ministry, and of course we still have performance, but that's not the emphasis.

Now, you see, I had to come to the place right now. Hey, this guy is a member of the family. You see? And this is his little expressions of love. I tell you what it's sort of like having a retarded child at home and letting him do his thing.

So you see, I haven't eliminated this guy, but before I would have eliminated him. Some way I'd have found some nice way to gut him off, because after all, if you're putting on a performance, you just don't have this kind of guy hanging around and doing his little thing every Sunday morning, you know, and grabbing center stage.

So you see, it affects, I'm just giving you a simple illustration, but it goes far, far, far beyond it. Now, let me stop here and say something to you. A few years ago, I read in a Southern Bell magazine an article that was entitled like this, Vertical Thinking and Lateral Thinking.

Now, the Southern Bell magazine said this, if the only kind of thinking you do is vertical thinking, you're going to end up with basically the same structure. For instance, if you tear the building down but don't get rid of the foundation, when you build it back up, You might be able to paint it a different color, and you might be able to use different materials, and you might be able to call it by a different name, but you're going to have basically the same structure because you still have the same foundation.

And this Southern Bell article said, if you want something different, you're going to have to do vertical thinking. You're going to have to go out here, and you're going to have to find your new foundation. It's going to have to be new emphasis. And I want to say this. What I'm presenting to you these days is not... A new room added to the old house.

It's not a novel program. I want you to get that. I'm not giving you something to go back home or even challenging you to go back home and build a new room on your old structure. I'm talking to you about a completely different way of life.

And I'm going to be speaking to you in one of my messages about the cost of this. It's a tremendous cost. Because when you get to tampering with foundations, That's when all hell breaks loose. They don't mind you tearing down the training union and calling it something else.

I mean, you know, you can tear it down, give it a new name, dress it up with new paint, call church the Sunday evening place. They don't mind that at all. And I'm not knocking this, remember. I'm just using an illustration. It's when you seek to eliminate training union completely that all hell is going to break loose, mostly from the people who don't come.

Now I'm not saying training union ought to be eliminated. I'm trying to give you an illustration. Don't misunderstand. I don't mind. Who has training? That's their business. That's their thing.

But I'm just saying, I'm trying to illustrate the fact that what I'm talking to you about is eventually leaving the old structure. You'll never be able to carry out the kind of thing I'm trying. It's not adding on, adding on, adding on. You end up with a conglomerated mess and more worn-out people than you can take care of.

It's going over here with some new concepts, and I'm giving you the words that these new concepts over here mean. And therefore, they have to be new structure. Okay? Now, having said that, remember this, and I'll show you how all this works out later, the best I know.

You know, all I can say is this is what I've discovered this far. I have not attained or arrived. I'm traveling. And a lot of it seems like it's uphill. And about two or three times a week, I wonder if I'm plum crazy. Why don't you go back to the other way and just be happy where you were?

But you see, the problem is this. When you have light, not for everybody, when you have light for yourself, you can't go back to the other way. This is what light does for you. Once you have received a vision, you can't go back to the other.

And so I'm caught in between of wanting to go back and can't go back. That's a very miserable place to be. And I'm going to make some suggestions to you later on through some of the things I've learned.

Now, my whole part of the ministry dealt with a slice of life. You can write down in the left-hand column, a slice of life. My new ministry, as I see, deals with the whole of life.

Now, let me ask you something. You all have been going to Baptist churches all of your life. Let's take the money situation. Most Baptists are very, very interested in money. Very, very interested in money.

Now, most of the preaching done about money has to do with a slice of money, not all of money. Be a good steward with your tithe and your offering. But let me ask you something. Are the churches that you have been in as much concerned about what people do with all of their money as with just part of their money?

The concept that I used to have, remember I'm talking from my point of view and I'm just asking about yours. You see, I didn't care how deep in debt people were. I didn't care what they did with the rest of their money. I just wanted them to be a steward with 10% plus, especially the plus two, you know, that would really help and sort of booster the thing up.

Now, a few years ago, we began telling people, hey, listen, you need to be as good a steward with the 80% and the 90% that you keep at home as the money that you give away. See, 10% is a slice of life. 100% is the whole.

Now, let me share with you what the end result has been in our church. By my minister of education, I have not preached six sermons on money in eight years. I'm not against those who do. Remember this. I want you to keep that in mind. I'm just showing you where it's going.

But see, a few years ago, we started saying to people, we are interested in helping you with 100% of your money, not just taking the 11% or 12% or whatever percent you'd like to get. So we said, you ought to get out of debt. You ought to pay off your back debt. You ought to do this.

And we became concerned. Not that we have arrived, but we're at least concerned about it. Now, we have not had a stewardship campaign. We have not taken pledges in these eight years.

Now, we gave last year about 39% of our income to one form of missions or another. And right now, we have $700,000 in the bank. $500,000 that's absolutely free to do what we want with what God leads us with.

So I'm saying to you, And I believe the principle is this, when God saw that we were willing to obey him and be coming to rest in the whole, rather than just our part, what's going to help the church go, I believe God has loosely pocket strings of our people without even asking them to.

We decided, and I think rather impetuously. Maybe one about December 1st this year we try to have a locking room goal or a mission goal for $100,000. Well, we didn't reach $100,000 but we got $70,000 and we didn't start and the only thing we did we didn't send out any letters.

We just made two or three announcements from the pulpit and had two ministries that we supported, a jail ministry that we supported, an alcoholic ministry, had the leaders of those come and preach once, and that's what we did. And God loosed the pocketbooks of our people.

Now, I don't have a lot of big businessmen in my church. All of my people, by and large, are either employed by the school board or out at the cave. We have very, very few businessmen, very, very few millionaires, so as to speak.

Most of the giving is done by a great segment of the population. But you see, we have become concerned, not just with the money we get at the church. We have become concerned with what they do with their money at home.

And so we've had people in, we had a seminar a few years ago, and a guy who dealt on the whole aspect of borrowing and the whole show. Because,

Here is the cleaned-up sermon transcription with proper punctuation, capitalization, and natural paragraphs:

Treats his kids. I'm just as concerned about Butch Jones spending two hours with his son, listen, playing with his son, because that's a necessary part of his life as I'm Butch Jones coming down to the church and going visiting for two hours. Now this is what I mean by the whole life concept.

We are now seeking to enter, and listen, we haven't even begun. I'm ashamed, I'm broken-hearted, a lot of it has had to do with my cautiousness due to fear that I could be making a terrible mistake. Many, many times I get in the bedroom just, I have the sweetest wife in the world and I just sort of open up to her and say, "Oh, we're making a mistake." We're making a mistake. You know, I just know we're making a mistake.

But the thing that I'm going to be talking about when I use the word discipleship, I'm talking about whole life. I'm talking about participation. I'm talking about formation. Now listen carefully. You write in the left-hand column, ministry. And you can write in the right-hand column, fellowship.

Now, it's not that I'm against ministry. Just listen. And I want you to go with it. Before, it was get everybody to do, do, do, do, do, do, do this, do that, do the other. What are you doing? Now, our emphasis is on fellowship, a two-way fellowship. A fellowship with God this way, and a fellowship with each other this way.

You know, I've become convinced this, that most children are born when two people have fellowship. And I'm just convinced that the greatest soul-winning program for our church is out in the future when we learn to have fellowship. You see, you know children are born into the kingdom of God when God the Father has an affair with His church.

They should be born in children into His kingdom in fellowship. So, the big emphasis that we're trying to make is fellowship. Fellowship. You see, I became convinced that preaching wasn't going to do it a few years ago. I just, I thought if preaching was going to do it and truth was going to do it, it would already be done five times at our church.

We've had everybody you can imagine at our church. I mean, they got more truth than they could live out in seven lifetimes. We have been, what I consider, the greatest Christian man in the world next week. Again, a man called DeVern Fronk. You wouldn't know him. He doesn't travel in Southern Baptist Church, but if you've never read his books, God used his books and his life to be sort of a foundational change in my own life.

So, we talked about the slice of life, and we talked about the whole of life, and we talked about performance and participation and information and formation. We talked about ministry and fellowship. Now, listen carefully. This is a very important distinction. Before, I used to major on building, right building in the left-hand column, a church.

And now, the emphasis is on growing a church. Now, listen to me carefully. I want to illustrate to you the difference between building and growing. When you build something, you design it, and you build it. When you grow something, you only cooperate with a preexistent life principle. Farming, the secret of farming is learning how to cooperate with life.

Now, our emphasis is this. Now, that a church ought to be grown, not built. And because, you see, when you're growing something, you can't determine exactly how it's going to look. When you're building something, you can determine every corner, everything. We're going to do this, and we're going to do this, and we're going to do that.

And you can make the layout, and you can come up with the end. But when you're growing something, it might decide to shoot a limb out here that you hadn't planned on. You've never seen two oak trees exactly alike, have you? You see, the emphasis now, not that we don't have any building, but the emphasis now is that you grow a church.

You don't build a church. Remember, this is all mine. I'm not condemning anybody else. They want to build churches. That's between them and God. Maybe God called them to build churches. To grow a church, there is a life force called God the Holy Spirit.

I mean, we've got some of the most unusual ministries in our church that just grew up. We got a bunch of women that all they do is to run around and decorate homes for the glory of God. I'm serious. They go into a home. They believe that you don't have to spend a lot of money to decorate a home for the glory of God.

And they believe you can use things in there. And God gave them the greatest creativity that you have ever seen in all of your life. And we've got a ministry in our church. They've decorated 300 homes. I mean, to make a house pleasant. They major in things like the bedroom.

They feel like the bedroom ought to be one of the very best. And, you know, I mean, we couldn't have planned that if we'd read all the books in the world. It wouldn't have come up. But see, you see, the life of God, busting in one limb, started to bust out in this limb of this lady, and she's completely transformed since she's... She'd never make a Sunday school teacher.

She'd be an awful lot of other things. But she's perfect in this realm. And so this ministry has budded out here and it's sort of gone on. The 959 plan, the 2959 plan. You know how that started? I'll tell you what it started. I was trying to get my people to have personal devotion.

And I wrote it up on a mimeograph piece of paper. One of my men got shipped to California and gave it to a man out there in one of the area, space industries. And he wrote me that and said, "This was the greatest thing." It's changed my life. And he said, "I'm using it in my church and changed its life."

And so my wife had a wreck in the car and I took $1,000 and invested them in the first book that we got for the car. You know something? That thing has grown to a $200,000 a year ministry. And we don't have any advertising.

The 2959 plan has sold, listen, has sold without any national advertising at all, between 150 and 200,000 copies right now. I mean, you know, it's just grown. So we have a bunch of people working in this, in tapes and books. We didn't plan this. We didn't know it was going to grow into this.

And maybe God will get ready to chop it off. Well, you see. He is the vine keeper. He wants to chop the vine off. He can chop the vine off. We didn't plan a retreat ministry. One year we wanted to send $10,000 up to... To the whole mission.

And a guy on the whole mission board said this to us, "Don't send the money up there. You take it and bring pastors down here." There are a lot of defeated pastors. Bring them down here for a week and give them a week of ministry. And so we started doing that.

And the Lord later said to us, "We just did that once a year for four or five years." And the Lord said to us on a deacon prayer retreat, "I want you to build a building and have a larger retreat ministry."

And then we started building a building and said, "I want you to build it for cash." We ran out of money halfway through, so we had a day of prayer and fasting rather than a financial campaign.

That's what God told us to do. And we finished the billing for $257,000 and paid for every bit of it by cash. And now we have a functioning retreat ministry, and we have pastors coming to us from Michigan and Illinois and Indiana.

Those are the three eastern states out there, the New England states, and they're coming down to us. We didn't plan this. It just sort of grew there. I can't take any credit for it. I wasn't the one who got the idea.

When you're past the church, you get a lot of credit for things you don't do, but that's okay. You get blamed for a lot of things you didn't do either, so it sort of balances it out.

Oh, I could just tell you some of the most exciting stories of how it came. One pastor came from California. And if I could tell you the stories, and he went back to California, the things that have gone on from that, and how God's given us a ministry out there.

You see, this is the difference in growing. We didn't sit down and say, "No, let's see how we can serve the Lord." I think we ought to do this and this and this. I'm not against that for the folks of God's call to do that.

I'm just showing you that the emphasis is the life of God in somebody. And this woman sprung up and she started a decorating ministry. The life of God has sprung up in these guys that have this agape ministry.

The life of God sprung up through other members of the church and started the retreat ministry. You see, it is growing. I don't know what's going to grow next. And I don't know how it's going to go.

I got started in this whole thing. Not by accident. I didn't go on prayer chaplain. I didn't ever plan anything like that or that we're doing now. But it just sort of grew there. You know, it just sort of has gone that way.

Now, the ministry I'm going to be talking about is a ministry of growing rather than being. Now, get this next one. And I think we've already... It's a ministry right down in the left-hand column. Howling. And in the right-hand column, shepherd.

Now, I want to ask you, well, you see, I used to be a harling. You know what a harling is? He's somebody who can be hired. You know, I mean, now listen, I want to say this, and I don't mind saying this, and this is where I'm going to leave our church and say, you know why most Baptist preachers have so many troubles in churches?

Because they're harlings, and the people treat them like harlings, because they know they're harlings. You see, if the church hires me, and I allow myself to be hired, then the church has its right to tell me what to do, because they hired me and they're paying me.

Now, the difference between a shepherd and a harling is this. When trouble comes, a harling does what? He flees. But a shepherd, when trouble comes, he stays and lays down his life for the sheep.

Now, this kind of ministry. You see, I have no ambition. No desire to go anywhere. W.A. Criswell were to die in a month. And they were to ask me to come to First Baptist Church in Dallas. If God gave me my choice, I'd stay where I am because God's given me a flock.

And I'm a shepherd. I was there when they were born. And I was there when they won the bottle. And I was there changing the diapers of so many of them. And I've been there. We are a family. I say that before God.

God almost had to write it in the sky. Why? For me to go to a place like First Baptist Church of Dallas because of my new concept. You see, for years I was, I guess I was a hireling. But under this new concept you become a shepherd.

And I can't get into all the differences out here. You see, a shepherd loves his sheep. A harling, he might relate to them because it pays to relate to them properly. There are a lot of differences here.

Now, I feel like that's a legitimate difference, and you need to beware of it. You see, when you leave seminary and say, well, I'm going to take this little church. It's a stepping stone to a big one. You're a harling. Somebody say, you want a big church? Grow one.

Or let God grow one. But see, beware of that. Okay, so the difference now is this. I see myself as a shepherd. I still get there. Okay? Let's use another word. Organization, number one. Just put in the left-hand column, organization, number one. And then put in the right-hand column, organism, number one.

You see, it's not that you have, it's not an either-or, but it is a one-two. What's more important? The organization. Are you going to organize it? That goes back to the building. Or are you going to... Is a church an organization first?

You plan out, or is it an organism? Now, you have to prune a tree and things like that. So, the ministry I'm talking about here has a lot to do with that.

Okay? Now, put over in the left-hand column, knowledge. And put over in the right-hand column, love. Now, let me explain this to you. This is a very important thing.

I used to be more concerned with people being doctrinally correct than relationally correct. Are you with me? I used to be more concerned with people being doctrinally correct than relationally correct.

Now the new emphasis that I see in this type of ministry, I'm more concerned with people loving each other than agreeing in doctrine. I've come to the conclusion that Christians over the years can't come to a conclusion about certain things.

The folks in our church, including myself, are never going to come to that conclusion. I know some of these things will be heresy to you. But you know, half the Christians in the world don't believe in immersion. I believe in immersion. But that isn't a big deal.

If a Baptist damns a Methodist because the Methodist doesn't believe in immersion, the Baptist damning and criticizing of the Methodist is worse than the Methodist sprinkling as over against our immersion.

But see, doctrinal correctness. I tell you, I really came to this conclusion like it. I've been married to the most lovely woman for 30 years, and she and I don't agree on so many things, and I figure if she and I can't get together on a whole lot of things after 30 years, boy, to get this big bunch of people agreeing on something is a real big joke, and I'll never attain it, and I'm not about to even try.

We've got a little saying in our church that goes like this right now. If you're good enough for Jesus, you're good enough for us. You know what Baptists are saying? Yeah, I know the charismatics are saved, but... Yeah, I know those folks down the street are saved, but...

Now, our new philosophy is this. If you're good enough for Jesus, you're good enough for us. And see, I get more disturbed about a husband or about neighbors being at odds with each other than I do them not believing eternal security.

To me, it's more important that relationships be right than doctrine be right. Now, you don't have both of them right good. But I'm more concerned. You see, I've...

Okay? That relationship. And brother, I'm going to tell you something. You get on tough ground. It's easy to be an individual Christian when you really get down to the brass tacks.

You know, you see, I can't say any longer, if she don't like it, let her go away and I'll go. I can't say that anymore. I've got to go over there and be friends with her. And I've got to win her loyalty so that together we can represent Jesus Christ.

Okay, let's write down another word that will help you. The word is independence in the left-hand column, and in the right-hand column, it's interdependent.

Now, let me explain the difference between these two. In my old way of ministry, it was independence. I'll do my thing. If you don't like it, you don't have to go along with me. I can make it.

But see, interdependence is something that says this. I need you, and you need me. Independence says this, I can do my own thing, you do your own thing. It's sort of like, you know, two guys out on a job together.

They work together. They don't have to like each other. They don't need each other. They just work on the same job together. And when they go home, that's it.

But see, what God has given me a vision of is a group of people who are independent, interdependent women. I need you. I the preacher. Need that beacon I the preacher need that woman out there and she needs me. See that builds a greater sense of worth in every person if this could be got across in every person.

Okay, the other kind another word that would describe this and we're almost at the end of this is the word club as over against the word community.

God's given me the vision of the church as a Christian community. You see, before we met on Sunday, and Wednesday, or whenever it was, it doesn't really make any difference, and we had a common goal, and there was a common reason for our meeting, and we all paid our dues in one way or another, and then we trotted off home, and it didn't make any difference what happened to the other people during the week.

It was a sort of club. There was a bond, yes, a bond. But you see, the vision God's given me is a vision of community. Of community. When that guy's car breaks down, that's my business if he can't fix it. Community. Caring. Loving. In the everyday things of life.

Building a community together where we actually work like a community. Now we're a long ways from this. I'm giving you a vision of the type of ministry I'm speaking. Folks, let me just stop here and say this.

We're not going to win the world. I don't care what kind of programs we put on until we get together. By this shall all men know that you're my disciples, by how you love one another.

Listen, the one thing the world doesn't have, it has good organizations, it has tremendous performance, but the one thing the world doesn't have is unity and love and people caring for each other and really caring for each other and pulling for each other and sticking up for each other.

And when they see a bunch of people like that, A group of people who will accept them for what they are and not accept them to make them become something that they want to make them become, but accept them for what they are. I'm going to tell you something.

You can't beat people away from that kind of thing. Let me put on my glasses to see if I left off anything here. Can't

Here is the cleaned sermon transcription:

Ent. A number one. They were really going after each other. They were like, pow, pow, pow. You know, they were having a verbal trial that was taking place. And they were really going after each other. The situation got to the point where the son said to the father, "I didn't have to be born." And the son continued.

His father replied, "Well, if you had been born, the answer would have been nuts." We begin to realize that in all the families within the church, there is conflict and tension. So many families are getting divorced. So many people are living together and are married. Yet, there's still hatred, hostility, and bitterness between people. People despise one another and hate one another.

So many kids have come up to me and said, "Man, my parents just don't understand me." I've been having a fight with my mom. My mom doesn't understand me. My dad won't ever listen to me. My parents won't ever listen to me. My kids won't ever listen to me when I tell them something that's true.

It's like this happens all the time. Up in North Carolina, there was a boy who had taken his motorcycle on vacation with his family. They'd taken off up into the mountains, and he was taking his motorcycle down the mountain road with all these motorcycles. He was in a hurry to get home because he was late. He wanted to get there as quickly as he possibly could because he knew his parents were waiting supper for him.

It was dark, and he knew he just needed to get there. His father, who was up at the top of the hill in the cabin, was very concerned about his son. He knew his son was late. He knew it was getting dark. And he knew... that there could be something wrong with his son.

So, he came down the hill in his car. His son was coming up on the motorcycle. The father was coming down the hill in the car. Just about the time the father ran over a curb in the car, the son was coming around the safe curb on his motorcycle. And pow! Bam! They had a head-on collision.

The son was killed instantly. And the father is slowly dying with grief over his son's death. He'll go to his grave with that grief in his heart.

Two people and their son, both trying to reach out to each other, both trying to be concerned about one another, both loving one another, but they come on a collision course that smacks them together and kills one, leaving the other one so psychologically crippled that he can't live his life.

Is this what happens in your home? Is this what you experience in your house?

It's good news for you because there are things that you can do about it. Things can change that collision course, that can change that tragedy into something victorious and dynamic.

I mean, God has a plan. He'll work it out. And He has some principles that He's laid out for you to live your life by. If you will follow those and do those, then things will begin to fall into place.

Obviously, the problem is in either/or and but two places. The story of David and Absalom can be found in 2 Samuel. I'd like to study about this for four weeks tonight.